Page 45 of The Devoted Game

She stilled. How could he know that?

“Aha. I’m right.”

“You’re guessing,” she countered, her voice way, way fragile. A dead giveaway.

“Didn’t have to guess.” He sipped his wine. “Your photo album told me.”

She bit her lips together to prevent asking how the hell her photo album had told him anything.

“Lots of snapshots during high school, a few before that, and then nothing until the academy photos. That’s a sizable lump of time. Important time. College days.”

Her throat tightened, and her stomach rebelled at even the idea of more of the wine. Her heart rate had kicked back up to post-nightmare pounding. She should call Worth. Find out what the holdup was.

“Tell me, Grace,” McBride whispered through the darkness, his voice soft and cajoling. “It’s just you and me. Partners. You can’t possibly have any demons uglier than mine.”

Her lips quivered, and before she could stop herself she said it. “Nameless.”

The word resonated through her, making her insides writhe with equal measures of fear and disgust.

The initial silence told her he hadn’t expected that. “You were the final victim ...?”

Oh yeah. Surprise. Shock. Horror. Worth’s reaction had been the same. She hadn’t wanted to tell him, either, but Pierce had insisted. Either she told Worth or he would.

Damn Pierce. She had trusted him and he had let her down.

“But ...” McBride hesitated, that too-discerning mind no doubt analyzing every tiny detail he had learned about her to date. “Grace. That’s not your real name.”

“It’s my mother’s maiden name.” She had been born Vivian Taylor. Changing her name, changing colleges, it had been the only way to endure what came after survival.Living with it.

McBride stood. She tensed. He moved to the edge of the deck and braced his hands on the railing, peering out at the darkness.

A half minute or so elapsed, long enough for her to squirm. She shouldn’t have told him. Major mistake.

He turned, leaned against the railing. “What the hell are you doing with the Bureau?”

“My job,” she snapped. “And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m damned good at it.”

“When you don’t freeze up.”

That was a low blow. She held back her first reaction to his statement, and then she hugged her arms around her knees and told him the truth. “My past has nothing to do with the present. The Bureau is my life now. I’m not looking back, McBride. It isn’t healthy.”As you should well know,she considered tacking on but didn’t.

“How many years of therapy did it take for you to get this deep into denial?”

That was it. She dropped her feet to the deck and stood. “I’m calling Worth.”

McBride pushed off the railing, took a step toward her. “I was deep into an abduction case of my own at the time you went missing, but I heard some of the details. He kept you two weeks, didn’t he?”

When she didn’t answer, he took another step toward her. She refused to be intimidated. She was finished with that. This conversation wasn’t happening.

“How many times did he rape you?” He went on with his heartless interrogation.

The rage she had thought she could hold back erupted inside her. How dare he ask her that? “Shut up, McBride. Justshut up.”

“Every day?” he pushed ruthlessly. “Twice a day? More?”

Fury overrode her common sense, and she took the final step, got into his personal space for a change. “That’s right, if you must know. Every damned day. I lost count of the times.” She laughed, a dry, nasty sound. “And I killed him. Just once,” she qualified, “but that was all it took.”

More of that deafening silence. They stood so close she could feel the tension running through his body, could smell the sweet wine on his breath.